WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 253: Our Son (2)
──────
In August, with the summer heat at its fiercest, a massive event set all of Hale Kingdom abuzz.
It had not happened in the capital, nor in the relatively densely populated north of the kingdom.
The Six Southern Houses.
And among them, a special swordsmanship lecture hosted by House Farreira, a house that held nothing more than a baron's title, had drawn the attention of countless people.
'And "drawn attention" does not even begin to cover it.'
Marcus wiped away the sweat pouring down his face as he greeted the flood of guests.
He had known interest would run high. But he had not expected it to be this high.
Nobles from nearby lands were one thing, but even figures from the far north of the kingdom had sent inquiries asking whether they could attend the special lecture.
Small baronial houses and powerful high nobles alike had all sent representatives with proper courtesy, or letters accompanied by valuable gifts.
And it was not just them.
Somehow, word had spread even to nobles in territories bordering Hale Kingdom, and so many tried to squeeze in that the guest list had to be narrowed down.
That was exactly why they had capped attendance at two people per house.
Otherwise, Farreira's training grounds could never have handled the crowd.
Truly, the greatest boom in the house's history!
Pride bloomed across Marcus's face as the thought crossed his mind.
The eldest sons who would one day carry the future of Hale Kingdom, gathered here at the lord's estate!
And the finest knights of each house, sure to rank among the best in the entire kingdom!
All of them stared, eyes practically burning, waiting for the pride of House Farreira, young master Airen Farreira.
It was a gratifying sight that would have been unimaginable ten years ago, and Marcus's heart pounded even harder than Airen's own.
But not everyone watched the scene with pure anticipation.
Kiril Farreira was a prime example.
Unable to hide a flicker of worry on her face, she shifted restlessly on her feet and finally spoke.
"Will it be all right?"
"What will?"
"My brother, I mean."
"Airen's always all right, isn't he?"
"No, I mean the lecture. I know he's a strong swordsman, but teaching... that's a bit of a different territory, don't you think?"
"That's true."
Lulu nodded.
There was a saying that geniuses made poor teachers.
Beings who reached, through a single flash of intuition, a level that others could only climb after countless repetitions, deep reflection, and tireless effort.
Transcendent souls who leaped dozens of steps at a time up a staircase most people had to climb one careful step after another.
Naturally, swordsmanship had its share of people like that.
And the world called them Sword Masters.
'And my brother's rumored to have talent that ranks among the best even among Sword Masters.'
Who were the three geniuses currently shaking the continent?
The first was Ignet Crescentia.
The second was Illia Lindsay.
And the third was the prodigy who had made his name across the continent like a shooting star, Airen Farreira.
'Can someone that incredible actually give a lecture tailored to ordinary people's level?'
Kiril genuinely worried about it.
Not just her brother, either. Everyone who had ever stood by his side counted among the ranks of geniuses too, which only deepened her concern.
And that same doubt had spread more than a little among the eldest sons and finest knights gathered at the training grounds.
"H-he's coming."
"Quiet."
"Young master, even if the lecture turns out disappointing, do not let it show. We did not come here to learn the sword. We came to strengthen ties."
"Understood."
Just then, a blond young man appeared, walking toward them from a distance.
Every murmur of conversation stopped at once. Watching this, Marcus felt that stinging swell of emotion rise in his chest again.
A strangely heavy atmosphere settled over the grounds.
In the silence that spread in an instant, Sword Master Airen Farreira came to a stop.
Standing before the crowd gathered around him, he lifted a hand, his gaze neither servile nor overbearing.
A radiant golden Greatsword shimmered into being in the air.
"Ohh."
"Is that..."
The weapon that symbolized Airen.
The peerless blade said to have shattered the Numbering Sword of Ricardo Pinto, the son of Sword Master Harrison Pinto and a candidate for Proof Land Champion.
Seeing its brilliance up close, the swordsmen let out murmurs of astonishment.
Not a single blade they had ever seen came anywhere close.
And it was not only the sword.
The swordsman himself was just as incomparable.
Vwooooom!
"......"
"......"
An Aura Sword suddenly bloomed into being.
Its presence, denser and more magnificent than even the glow of the Sorcery Greatsword, shifted the atmosphere in the training grounds once more.
Until then, honestly, the crowd's gaze toward Airen had not carried the feeling one usually held toward a Master.
A solid build, a steady stride, a calm bearing.
These could all be read as marks of a strong warrior, but none of it carried the visceral, overwhelming presence people pictured when they heard the words "Sword Master."
But not anymore.
An atmosphere that filled the wide training grounds completely, the kind only someone who had reached that level could give off.
Feeling it, everyone stood frozen, unable to voice even a gasp or so much as swallow, their eyes locked forward.
Airen stayed composed.
After swinging his sword lightly four or five times, he let the energy dissipate.
Only then did murmurs rise from the crowd, thick with lingering regret.
Most of the swordsmen here had never once experienced an Aura Sword in their lives, and every one of them burned the sight into memory as if branded.
But this was not the end.
It was only the beginning.
Airen, wearing an easy smile now, spoke for the first time.
"With so many, such a wide range of guests here today... I spent quite a while deliberating over what exactly I should cover. If I touch on the basics, some of you might find it dull. But if I dive too deeply into advanced techniques, I worried some of you might walk away with nothing to gain. So..."
Whoosh.
Whooosh!
Whoosh!
Airen swung his sword three times in smooth, light motions before settling into a stance.
Every eye naturally locked onto him. Compared to the Aura Sword, it was nothing much, and yet nobody felt a single moment of boredom.
Not just them, either. Kiril, Lulu, Marcus, and the trembling Baron and Baroness Farreira all stared blankly at their son.
Airen remained composed throughout.
Unfazed by the intense attention fixed on him, he spoke in a firm, steady voice.
"...I've decided to cover everything, from beginning to end."
And so, the swordsmanship lecture of Hale Kingdom's strongest began at last.
* * *
Airen Farreira's lecture centered heavily on "seeing."
Reading an opponent's movements.
Parrying an opponent's attack.
And, further still, thrusting a sword toward an opponent required first grasping their intentions and actions.
The foundation of all that was "seeing."
See well, and you can dodge well. See well, and you can track well.
An utterly obvious principle, and yet doing it properly, let alone mastering it, was an entirely different matter.
The first thing Airen brought up was the shoulder.
"Beginners with a sword almost always fix their eyes only on their opponent's blade. I did the same. Chasing a blade as it flashes wildly around, I found my eyes and head growing dizzy right along with it. But..."
"If you focus on the shoulder instead, that dizziness drops to half or less."
Airen said this plainly, then swung his sword with a whoosh.
"The blade isn't the only thing that moves. Before that, the arm moves, and before that, the shoulder moves. If any of you have struggled to read your opponent's swordsmanship during a sparring match, felt your hands and feet scramble without knowing how to respond, try focusing on the shoulder instead, since it sits closer to the source of the movement. I'll slow the motion down even further from here."
A kind, precise explanation.
Paired with clean, textbook-perfect movements to back it up.
Heads nodded on their own throughout the crowd.
The young heirs who had only recently taken up the sword reacted especially strongly.
Airen had put his finger directly on struggles they had lived through themselves and offered a relatively simple solution, and it drew them in even deeper.
Of course, not everyone reacted the same way.
Some thought they already knew all of this.
Some did not find it particularly relatable.
But Airen's lecture was not finished yet.
"As I said before... the sword matters, but what matters even more is the source of the movement. The many muscles and joints that work together to produce a single motion... it would be wonderful if you could grasp all of it at a glance, but I think everyone here knows how difficult that really is. That is why you narrow your focus and shift it. From the sword to the shoulder, from the shoulder to the waist, from the waist to the feet."
Airen's words flowed out steadily, like a river that never stopped moving.
It was nothing like the man who usually struggled to find the right words.
Part of that came from how thoroughly he had prepared for the lecture, but more than that, it came down to who Airen was as a person.
He was a genius.
And a man of relentless effort.
No, that was not quite enough to describe it. A genius of effort was closer to the truth.
Where ordinary geniuses leaped dozens of steps at a time on their way up, Airen climbed by working through every single step carefully and solidly. He advanced more steadily than anyone.
What mattered was that this had not changed, not once, even as he climbed higher, and higher, and higher still.
"It's not enough just to have every part of the body in view. An opponent might throw in a feint to break your guard, or try to bait you into a mind game. To counter that, you need to read their intentions before they act. And that is where the eyes come in."
Points that seemed ordinary or easy to geniuses.
And points that felt brutally difficult even by those same standards.
Airen treated every one of them with the same seriousness. He swung his sword with everything he had, and even afterward, he never neglected to reflect.
That was exactly why reaching such a high level had not kept him from noticing those still below, and why he was fully capable of offering advice to people standing at a lower rung than himself.
He returned to the beginning.
He walked back through the path he had taken, slowly, explaining it at the level of the crowd before him.
And when the lecture, stretching on for hours straight, finally came to an end.
Clap.
Clap, clap.
Clap clap clap clap clap clap...
The applause that first broke out from someone's hands swelled with astonishing speed, threatening to swallow the entire training grounds.
It was not out of courtesy toward a new hero risen in the center of the continent.
It was not some calculated gesture meant to build a friendship with a Sword Master.
It was pure, unfiltered admiration for the lecture itself.
Baron Farreira's eyes had just begun to redden at the feeling when Airen spoke.
"Before I wrap up, I'd like to say one more thing."
The moment Airen Farreira opened his mouth, the training grounds fell silent with startling speed.
The young man standing before them now was not someone who had simply gotten lucky with raw talent. Nobody said it aloud, but everyone understood.
They understood the sheer, staggering density of effort he must have poured in to get here. That the disgrace of "the lazy lord" had been nothing but a ridiculous misunderstanding.
Airen had no idea they were thinking any of that.
He did not need to know.
What he actually wanted to say...
No, the heart he wanted to show them was only just beginning.
"All of you... why did you pick up the sword?"
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
